Monday 31 May 2010

Vignettes from Jerez: The (mainly) fish market

The Spanish love their fish and whilst it's obvious that big cities like Madrid and Barcelona will have great fish markets (Madrid's is second in the world to Tokyo's) I hadn't banked on a diminutive little town like landlocked Jerez having anything special.  I'd walked past the large covered market building the evening I arrived and had imagined a mixed meat, fish, fruit & veg, and olive market the next morning but not the biggest show of fish I'd ever have seen.
Dozens of mongers with their neat little shops in rows were selling a bewildering array of prawns, shrimps, squid, hake, cod's roes, whelks, langoustines, tuna, the odd John Dory and skate, and a few sharks, big and small.  The customers, mainly older women, were expertly choosing exactly the fish they wanted, sometimes getting the mongers, a mix of men and women, some fairly young, some veritable old fish wives, to pick fish from the bottom of the pile or even doing it themselves.  The mongers would then fillet and cut in the flash of an eye with a very sharp knife.
What a shame that on an island like Britain most towns do not possess one single fishmonger (let alone a proper food market) and that the supermarkets where most food is bought anyway provide a pathetically small choice of fish, most of it ready filleted or smoked or 'previously frozen'.  
 
The central part of the Jerez covered market is totally devoted to fish.  In the stalls around the periphery there are butchers selling a little fresh meat including the odd (wild) bunny and sausages and plenty of preserved meat (in the form of hams and more sausages).  There are greengrocers selling notably knobbly fruit and vegetables, nothing too perfectly smooth and shiny like in the UK.  The odd frutos seccos shop selling nuts and dried fruit and honey too.  And one lone baker selling crap bread, Spain being a curiously bread challenged country.  Here, the Brits might have the edge, Sunblest and Hovis notwithstanding.








11 comments:

  1. Nice peppers, yes Mat, but what about the fish?!

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  2. Great looking fish market. I know what you mean about the UK and its lack of fish markets. Is the problem over fishing (and tough regulation) in UK fisheries I wonder?

    I grew up in Cornwall which ought to have great fish mongers, and while there are a couple, there isn't much. But there are only two real fishing fleets working anymore, in Newlyn and Looe. And a lot of their fish goes to London overnight.

    Maybe the issue is one of cost, we still don;t spend a huge amount of money on food here and the perception is that fish is expensive. Whatever the issue it, i agree that it is odd, and a shame.

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  3. Stocky lot down there, aren't they! Amazing fish, but yes, we've got the better bread(!)

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  4. The Brits spend money on houses, cars and in some cases their children's education before they'll spend much on food. The Spaniards on even modest incomes will eat quite well (though will put up with the most ordinary bread)

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  5. Ce reportage donne envie de partir à Jerez seulement pour aller parcourir les allées de ce beau marché. Tant mieux si de tels marchés n'existent pas en GB, alors l'Europe serait fade comme un Big Mac! Les prix sont amazing; à Paris, il est rare de trouver un poisson à moins de 15€le Kg. Je me demande aussi à quel usage culinaire sont destinés tous les abats de poisson que j'ai aperçus.Je suis curieuse de le savoir. En tout cas, ils doivent être cuisinés avec beaucoup d'huile, si on se fie à l'embonpoint des clients de la halle...Merci pour ce joli post qui mêle poésie, cuisine, chair, départs.

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  6. Claire, j'ai mangé des huevos hier soir... les américaines avec qui j'ai dînées ont crû qu'on commandait des oeufs durs en salade mais c'était des oeufs de merlu(!!) trempés dans de l'huile et accompagnés d'oignon hachés. Aussi, du calzon pané, genre de petit requin, et des chocos, genre de pieuvres. Le tout arrosé de Sherry, naturellement (dans notre cas, du Fino Tio Pepe). Les vins de Xérès sont quasiment inconnus en France: dommage!

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  7. Patrick - great to meet you...you missed a lot of corners of this great province - shame we did not coincide to show you more. Let me know if you remain interested in pursuing a restaurant project either jere or in London...may be interesting to at least chat through some ideas...

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  8. Paul, great to meet you too at Bodegas Tradicion: what an evening! I think I'd had a pretty long lunch at Lustau that day. I shall be back soon I hope. Meanwhile, I had lunch in Sanlucar on Tuesday (at Barbadillo, delicious tapas), Wednesday at La Carbona for tuna, Thursday at the Casino Nacional club for steak and chips (!) and charming company, drinks on the roof of the Hotel Chancilleria, tour of Gonzales Byass on Friday kindly organized by London office, dinner at El Faro in Puerto de Santa Maria for sherry matching dinner, tuna dinner at El Campero in Barbate on Saturday and tapas and religious processions with brass bands in Cadiz on Sunday. It is a great region though as you say I have only scratched the surface.

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  9. The fish look ok, gone off fish lol. To be honest the hake look amazing. The gills are a deep red, the best you'll see. Where will you visit next?

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  10. Mat, I'm going to France next week but shall be a long way from the sea (Champagne/Burgundy border). I hope to 'catch' some oysters when I go to Paris though; the turnover there is so great one almost gets the impression that they're fresher in the capital than on the coast!

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